Bo Nilsson

Bo Nilsson (born 1 May 1937), is a Swedish composer and lyricist.

Bo Nilsson was born in Skellefteå, and first drew notice as a composer at the age of 18 when his Zwei Stücke (Two Pieces) for flute, bass clarinet, percussion, and piano were performed in a 1956 West German Radio (WDR) “Musik der Zeit” concert in Cologne. He had taught himself composition by listening to the radio, having previously had only basic training from a local music teacher and some experience as a jazz pianist. Though his early style owes much to Pierre Boulez and , it also displays a number of personal features: the use of bright percussion sounds behind finely wrought vocal or flute (usually alto flute) lines, a “nervous” fluttering of tonal nuances, and a feeling for miniature, calculated forms (Åstrand 2001). Because he has chosen to live in the small town of Malmberget, he received the journalistic epitethet "the genius from Malmberget".

By 1957 Nilsson remained largely unknown in his own country, but had attracted considerable attention in Germany with a succession of small chamber-music compositions characterised by their refined and unusual instrumentation. The best-known of these is Frequensen (German: Frequenzen, 1957) for piccolo, flute, vibraphone, xylophone, electric guitar, double bass, and percussion (Wallner 1965, 124).

In the late 1950s Nilsson composed a twelve-page score for his first electronic work, Audiogramme, with only radio broadcasts and the published score of Stockhausen's Studie II as sources upon which to draw, since he did not have access to electronic equipment at that time. He submitted the score to the electronic-music studio at WDR in the hopes of having it produced there, and Gottfried Michael Koenig agreed to take on the role of "interpreter", even while expressing doubts about the composer's reliance on the "established style" of Stockhausen's Studien. By the time the realisation was completed in 1958 Nilsson, without yet having heard the results of his first essay in the medium, had completed another electronic piece and was planning a third (Koenig 1958, 85–86, 88). That second work, titled Würfelspiel (Dice Game), was also realised at WDR, while there is some doubt whether the third piece, Zellen (1958), was ever brought to completion (Sylvander 1974, 79).

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